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What is USB dongle for?

USB dongles protect software programs and hardware devices from unauthorized access. Unless the dongle is attached to the system there is no way to use a protected entity. The great convenience about dongles is they don’t occupy many USB ports, as several dongles can easily share a single port thanks to their ability of passing the data through.

Why share a USB dongle?So with all the security why would one share a dongle with someone else, i.e. provide a remote access to the device? Well, it can happen you need to work with USB devices in the virtual environment. As you perhaps know, virtualization software doesn’t offer the access to the host computer’s ports, therefore you cannot use the devices attached to a host computer in the virtual environment.

How to share a USB dongle over networkThere are all sorts of situations when one needs to use a dongle in a virtual environment or over the network. USB Network Gate is a powerful app created by Eltima Software that allows convenient access to remote USB devices. Thanks to USB Network Gate one can share a USB dongle over the Internet, LAN, WAN, etc. To do this, follow the instructions:1. Download USB Network Gate and install it on the machine the dongle is attached to. This computer will be called Server, the computer that will be accessing the device remotely will be called Client.2. Open USB Network Gate app on Server. Select the dongle from the list of devices and click ‘Share’.3. Open USB Network Gate on Client machine, and in the list of devices available for access find the dongle and click ‘Connect’.

With USB Network Gate it is very simple to share a USB dongle between two computers over WiFi or other network. The software is offered for various operating systems, so you can share devices among macOS, Windows, and Linux computers.